New, people-oriented Coakley kicks off gubernatorial campaign

Attorney General Martha Coakley made New Bedford one of six stops on the day she announced her candidacy for governor, all unscripted meet-and-greets designed to talk to voters one on one.

STEVE DeCOSTA

Attorney General Martha Coakley made New Bedford one of six stops on the day she announced her candidacy for governor, all unscripted meet-and-greets designed to talk to voters one on one.

In her chats with patrons at Cafe Arpeggio, the Green Bean and the New Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce, she championed SouthCoast causes and promised to show voters a different campaigner from the one who famously fumbled away a double-digit lead in losing a Senate seat to Republican Scott Brown in 2010.

"In running for governor, my intention is to go all over the state and actually talk to people," the 60-year-old Democrat said. "I have some ideas but I want to hear what people say.

"We have already kicked off a campaign that says to people that I'm going to be out every day shaking hands with people, but more than that, I want to know what their concerns are," said the candidate who, in 2010, was criticized for failing to engage with voters.

Accompanied by her husband, Thomas O'Connor, and four staffers along Purchase Street on Monday, Coakley heard about the high cost of education, the decline of the fishing industry, the dearth of jobs and the need for South Coast Rail to spark economic development.

"We should do it," she said when asked about commuter rail. "If we really want to do it, we'll find a way. We'll find the money."

On fishing, she complained of "federal agency overregulation, maybe designed for West Coast commercial operations. They don't get that it's a family business here."

Coakley's approach mirrored that of a YouTube video that announced her candidacy, in which she spent the better part of two minutes addressing the virtues and the needs of Massachusetts people.

"What we really have are the strongest, the toughest, the most resilient people in the nation," she said.

The video also addressed her 2010 loss to Brown head-on.

"I know what it's like to lose a race," she said. "I know how hard that is. But you know what? It's nothing compared to what so many people go through every day of their lives, and that's what I'll keep in mind every day if you give me the privilege of being your governor."

Asked directly about it Monday, Coakley said: "I've acknowledged that I made mistakes ... (but) whatever you thought about me in the past, I want to get you engaged now."

But political observers said it might not be easy for her to shake off the disappointment felt by Democrats after that election loss.

"In a primary, the people that are voting are those who are engaged, informed and who pay attention," said Shannon Jenkins, associate professor of political science at UMass Dartmouth. "They're going to remember 2010. That's a big hurdle for her.

"There was a real sense in 2010 that Coakley blew it, not that anyone else wouldn't have lost, but that she in particular lost it for running a bad campaign. It's one thing to say you lost it because it was an inhospitable political environment. That was probably true, but that's not the narrative that emerged, and I think people are going to remember that."

To overcome that, "She needs to be far more aggressive, and she seems to be," said Peter Ubertaccio, chairman of the Political Science Department and International Studies at Stonehill College. "If today is any indication, if this is the kind of race she's going to run: visible, doesn't shy away from the press, willing to engage voters, exhausts the other campaigns with her energy level, I think that it will force a lot of Democratic activists who are still bitter toward her to rethink that."

Coakley becomes the fifth Democrat to actively seek the office. Others are state Treasurer Steven Grossman, former Obama administration health care official Don Berwick, former federal and state homeland security official Juliette Kayyem and former Wellesley selectman Joseph Avellone. State Sen. Dan Wolf's candidacy is on hold pending a final determination by the Ethics Commission on whether his ownership interest in Cape Air would represent a conflict of interest.

The Democratic primary is scheduled for September 2014, and the election in November 2014. Charles Baker, the 2010 Republican gubernatorial nominee, recently launched a second bid for the job. Brown, who was defeated by Democrat Elizabeth Warren in his 2012 re-election bid, has ruled out a run for governor.